


season of hope (after the flood)

by slaapkat



Series: a world with love [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: (kind of?), Coming Out, Confessions, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 08:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17464145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaapkat/pseuds/slaapkat
Summary: Bruce tells his family about the Joker.





	season of hope (after the flood)

**Author's Note:**

> All the batjokes fics I've read always seem to be while the relationship is still kept secret or after everyone has (presumably) gotten over. Not enough stories about there about how people might have reacted to it! No fics about the consequences! Actually! Barely enough stories at all!!!! I had to fix that, so I tried. This fic is largely for own benefit.
> 
> Additional notes:  
> -It doesn't get mentioned but Bruce previously did try to come out about it before but chickened out and just ended up telling everyone he was bi instead (to no one's real surprise)  
> -I do tend to headcanon Damain as being handed off to Bruce quite a bit younger than in the comics, hence his reaction and feelings towards Talia
> 
> thanks as always to my best buddy @ufonaut
> 
> Otherwise, I hope you enjoy! :)

Things being the way they are, it tended to be no small effort to gather all his children in the same room for anything less than a national emergency.

Dick had his own beat to work in Bludhaven, both as an actual detective within the police force and as the vigilante Nightwing. Jason was-- _Jason_ , and as such his activities as the _Red Hood_  as reluctantly tolerated as they were, made it difficult to keep track of and get a hold of him… provided, of course, that Jason even _wanted_ to be found in the first place, much less listen to whatever Bruce had to say. Tim and Damian, while they each still lived under the Manor’s roof, made no secret of their mutual disdain and annoyance towards each other, and thus could occasionally prove hard to convince to even be in the same _room_ on their worst days, though Bruce suspected it was more for show nowadays than anything.

And given that Bruce had neglected to give the exact reason _why_ he’d called them all there that day, it stood to reason that they all, of course, knew _something_ had to be going on, they just didn’t know _what_.

It wasn’t an emergency, but it certainly had the potential to become one.

Bruce intended to finally tell them about-- about _Joker_.

A secret miraculously kept for over a _year_ at this point, an affair kept hidden from everyone, the guilt of deceit from both keeping his family in the dark and from inadvertently treating Joker like something to be ashamed of gnawing away at him, well aware of the betrayal he was committing in allowing the relationship to continue.

Joker had hurt so many people, so many of his friends and family, and yet…

And _yet_ …

Here Bruce was, sitting at the head of the dinner table, presiding over his gathered family as they sat around him, his hands folded in front of him, Alfred standing off to the side. Already there was palpable tension in the air, a sense of unease shared by everyone in the room as they shot glances between each other, still unsure what to make of Bruce’s request that they all be here, still with an explanation yet to be given.

Still with _anything_ yet to be given, not a single word said by Bruce since sitting them all down, still staring down at his hands in silence.

The kids were getting antsy. Jason was the first to break.

“You gonna talk, old man?” he said, voice brash despite the anxious tension to his shoulders, feet kicked up on the table as he leaned back in his chair; Alfred observed with a slight downturn of disapproval to his mouth, but said nothing, as cautiously eager as everyone else to see what it was Bruce had to say.

“I… _yes_. I am,” said Bruce, taking a shaky breath. It was now or never. “I’ve been keeping a secret from you all.”

Everyone tensed immediately, an apprehensive sort of dread filling the air.

 _Secrets_ never usually meant anything good, especially when they came from _Bruce_. He would be the first to admit he had a terrible habit of it, that overpowering obsession with keeping everyone he cared about _safe_ often extending to keeping the _truth_ from them until he could be certain the risk of danger had passed, or until an eventual mistake revealed his transgressions, often to the ire of those around him.

The latter was what tended to happen more often than not.

Secrets from Bruce were never anything less than a life-or-death matter. It was a song and dance his family knew all too well.

“You haven’t proposed to Selina again, have you?” Tim spoke up tentatively, earning a snicker from Jason and a chastising hiss from Dick; Damian remained silent, watchful. A misguided effort to lessen the mounting anxiety felt in the room, if Bruce had to hazard a guess.

He almost wanted to laugh. God, he _wished_ it were something as simple as that. That occasion had still ended with him risking an international incident while getting stabbed through the shoulder in the middle of a desert. Lord knew how this was to end up.

“Not… exactly,” Bruce replied eventually. He opened his mouth to continue only to stop, as though reconsidering, gritting his teeth in frustration. His family looked on, attention piqued, eyes narrowing in a mix of confusion and suspicion. “But I have been-- _involved_ , with someone.”

Dick seemed to be the first to sense that this wasn’t going to be good news, stiffening with a frown, “Bruce…”

“ _God_ , c’mon,” Jason scoffed. “You drug us all over here to tell us that? That’s what so important? How bad could this ‘ _someone_ ’ possibly be?”

 _Now or never_ , Bruce thought again. _Now or never_. He took deep breath, and braced himself for whatever may follow.

“For the past year and a half,” Bruce interjected before Jason could rant further, his tone steadfast and determined, leaving no room for interruption himself. Even then, it was hard to keep his voice steady, and it was with massive effort that he raised his head to look each of his boys in the eyes in turn. “I have been intimately involved with the Joker.”

The ensuing silence was thick enough to choke; from a distant room in the Manor, a grandfather clock ticks echoed through the halls. Everyone was still, frozen, staring at him with wide eyes and bated breath, unwilling to believe what they had heard just yet. The moment stretched on, heavy and oppressive.

“When you say… _intimately…_ ” Dick is the first to break the spell, clearing his throat and frowning. There’s a silent plea in his eyes, one that Bruce suspects Dick already knows is in vain, one that begs please let me have heard wrong.

“We… are in a relationship,” Bruce continued, unable to look his sons in the eyes much longer. From his side, he could hear Alfred mutter _my god_ under his breath. “We have _been_ in a relationship. For a while, now. I kept the affair secret because-- I was afraid of what others would think. I was afraid of what _you all_ would think. I know what he’s done, I know he’s hurt people, but--”

“ _Hurt_ people,” Jason snapped suddenly, sneering, jumping up so quickly that his chair screeched against the floor with the force of it, his face red with indignant rage as he began to shout. “Hurt people! Is this some kind of _joke_ ? Did you forget he _killed_ me, Bruce?”

“He’s changed,” Bruce tried, weakly speaking past Jason and already well aware it was a wasted effort. “All he wanted was Batman’s attention. _My_ attention, and now that he’s got it-- he hasn’t done anything in months--”

“ _Like I give a fuck!_ ” Jason roared, the sheer hurt and betrayal in his voice striking Bruce as harshly as a physical blow. It was hard not to flinch in the face of it. “That _clown_ thought it’d be funny to _leave_ me to _die_ , or did you _forget_ ? Did you forget about the _bomb_ ? Did you forget how he tried to beat me _half to death_ , and then finished the job by blowing up an entire goddamned _building_ on me?”

Bruce so, so sorely _wishes_ he could forget.

It’s selfish, he knows. Continuing to keep this up with Joker, their trysts and escapades-- thinking of how Jason’s limp body felt in his arms as he kisses Joker, the memory of the stench of smoke burning his nostrils and choking his throat mingling with that odd chemical scent of rubbing alcohol that seemed to accompany Joker at all times, that ever-present guilt of letting his son die wrestling with the quickly burgeoning guilt that he was sleeping with the man directly responsible for it.

Joker had hurt so many people. Joker had _killed_ so many people.

And here Bruce was, _defending_ him, in front of the exact last person who wanted to hear it.

“Do I mean _nothing_ to you?” Jason continued to shout, hands balled into tightly clenched fists at his sides, each word shoving the knife in Bruce’s heart deeper and deeper. “You know, I can _almost_ live with the fact that you were too cowardly put him down even after what he did to me, but _this_ ? You let him  _live_ so that you could-- you could--”

Faster than anyone could react, Jason snatched a gun from the inside of his jacket, cocked and beaded directly on Bruce, aimed squarely between his eyes.

Everyone was on alert in an instant, the tension going taught like a tripwire, as close as a literal hair trigger as one could get. No one dared move, no one dared breathe.

“Jason, _please,_ ” Bruce tried again, plaintive.

“Tell me this is just a joke,” Jason demanded, hard and flat, eyes steely with desperation. “This is just one big _joke_ . You’ve been huffing Joker Toxin, Poison Ivy has you on lock, _something!”_

Bruce said nothing; he swallowed thickly, struggling past a painful lump in his throat. Slowly, he looked up to meet Jason’s eyes, saying nothing. A silent confession.

The ensuing look on Jason’s face had Bruce considering, very briefly, that perhaps he did deserve to get shot after all.

His grip on the gun wavered, until Jason finally let his arm fall, snarling in frustration.

“I’m done,” Jason hissed through clenched teeth. “ _We’re_ done. If I ever see that clown again, I _will_ kill him, _like_ _you_ _should have_.”

He turned and stormed out before Bruce could even think to protest; seconds later the muted telltale sounds of motorcycle tires squealing on the pavement signaled that Jason had left. A heavy silence once again fell over the people left behind.

Preparing himself for similar reactions, Bruce looked across at the rest of his sons still seated around the table. Dick and Tim both shared twin expressions of shock and disbelief, though whether it was still in response to the news or to Jason’s explosive rant it was hard to say, mouths agape as they each struggled to gather their thoughts.

Damian, though. Damian--

Damian was looking on, eyes narrowed and shrewd, lips pressed into a thin line, shoulders tight. Not angry, not exactly, but critical. Still upset, but trying to hide it in that tight-lipped way he always did; it reminded Bruce of just how _young_ Damian was, and how it was likely he was least to understand out of all of them.

It did not bode well.

“Why Joker?”

Simply stated, seemingly innocent. An honest question, or so it appeared. Bruce hadn’t expected it. It took him some moments before he answered.

“It’s… complicated,” Bruce said, cringing as he did so. “I can’t explain it. Maybe it was a long time coming. I’ve come to care about him, very deeply. Enough to look past the things he’s done in the hopes of giving him a new chance.”

It was as much as Bruce was willing to say. It _was_ complicated, and he wasn’t sure he had the capacity to explain it as sufficiently as Damian or anyone else wanted.

Damian’s frown pulled a little deeper. “You would forgive him, for all that he’s done?”

Bruce was beginning to feel unsettled, sitting stiffly. “In time, yes.”

“You do this-- because you _love_ him?”

Bruce felt his heart jump into his throat, thrown by the bluntness of the question. How was he supposed to answer _that_. “Damian--”

Anger flashed in Damian’s eyes, then, expression crumpling momentarily before he reigned in control. He was, in that split second, very much a child of his age-- emotional, anxious, and _very_ ardent in his beliefs.

“Then why couldn’t you do the same for Mother?”

 _Talia_. Bruce froze, mouth hanging open slightly. He supposed he should have expected that.

The relationship between himself, Damian, and Talia had always been a complicated one. Bruce had loved her once, yes, but-- that was a long time ago; he’d come to doubt she ever really loved him in the first place, and certainly held no feelings towards him now. Damian loved her still as a child would, simply because she was his mother and he was her son, despite everything the League of Assassin’s put him through, despite Talia practically leaving him on Bruce’s doorstep.

Damian was told he was fated to become the next _Demon’s Head_ , that it was his _destiny_ to uphold both the Wayne _and_ al Ghul legacy. What Damian _really_ wanted, Bruce suspected, was a sense of _normalcy_.

Talia was his mother. Bruce was his father. Damian was their son. Therefor, they were supposed to be _together_.

They were supposed to be a _family_.

Damian had never said it outright, and never quite so succinctly, but Bruce could always tell. The way Damian would speak about her, _ask_ about her.

The way he clearly wanted her, always too proud to say so himself.

“Damian, that’s-- different,” Bruce tried again, because it was. He couldn’t expect Damian to understand, but he could try. “Your mother, Talia, what she does, that’s not the same--”

“Why isn’t it?” Damian demanded sharply. “Why can’t you forgive _her_ like you do Joker? Why are you with Joker at all?”

“I told you, it’s complicated,” Bruce said, desperate.

“Why does _Joker_ deserve redemption, but not _Mother?_ ” Damian only continued, and Bruce could see his son’s resolve beginning to crumble, eyes flashing with emotion and his mouth twisting into a grimace as he worked himself into a shout. “Why can’t you be with Mother? Why _Joker?”_

Damian shoved himself away from the table and rushed out of the room. Dick and Tim shared a look, and Tim glanced back at Bruce-- a mix of confusion, concern, and worry plainly evident on his face --before reluctantly sliding out of his seat and following after his younger brother.

Of course Damian wouldn’t understand. _Couldn’t_ understand, he was only _eleven_ , just pushing twelve. Damian only saw the betrayal towards himself and Talia, the hypocrisy of Bruce choosing to be with _Joker_ and not _her_. Confused why he felt this way and subsequently upset, it made sense why Damian would choose instead to lash out like that.

It only left Dick, still seated at the table as he watched Tim leave, and Alfred, who had still yet to do anything more than silently observe. All Bruce could do was wait.

Dick sighed, then, running a hand down his face before finally turning to face Bruce directly. He looked so tired, suddenly, so mature beyond his years; Bruce could hardly believe it was same little circus boy he’d adopted all those years ago.

“The worst part is… I _almost_ get it,” Dick admitted, gentle but guarded, unable to quite look Bruce in the eye as he talked. “I mean. I remember how he _used_ to be. Joker really wasn’t so bad, in the beginning. I remember thinking it was _fun_ getting to fight him. I know you enjoyed it, too.

“But Bruce-- he’s _changed_. You know this. _I_ know this. He’s dangerous, regardless what he has or hasn’t done since you two got together. He’s-- god. You remember what he did to Jim? To _Barbara?”_

“He’s not--” Bruce tried, then cut himself off when the words would not come, despairing. “He’s not…”

There was nothing else he could say, and he and Dick knew it.

Dick, for his part, did look genuinely reluctant for what he was about to say next.

“I won’t stop you,” he continued, voice heavy with emotion. “But I can’t-- be a part of this, not right now. I’m going to stay in Bluhaven for a while. Don’t… contact me. Please.”

With one last mournful and apologetic look, Dick calmly stood and left.

If the silence had been oppressive before, it was nearly suffocating now.

Bruce buried his face in his hands, overcome with the very real possibility he was directly responsible for losing his entire family. Behind him there was a quiet footstep. A warm and gentle hand was placed on his shoulder, squeezing once, and he was left behind by Alfred as well.

 

* * *

 

He’d lost track of how long he’d stayed in the dining room before he dared to venture out.

No sign of Alfred, but as Bruce had yet to be handed his resignation letter, he felt he could breathe easy, if only for that much longer.

The Manor was quiet, and hauntingly so. Bruce could almost feel the disapproving gazes of his parents on him, as heavy as the world itself. He shuddered to think of what they would say.

Dick was gone. Jason was gone. Damian was-- upset. He still didn’t know about Tim.

Bruce found him sitting at the top of the grand staircase, calmly watching him through the balusters. Observing.

If there was anything Bruce knew about Tim, it was that he was very good at observation.

“How’s Damian?” Bruce asked up at him, cautious. He figured it might be important to know.

Tim eyes ducked away briefly as he shrugged. Bruce frowned, brows drawing together slightly in confusion. “You don’t know…?”

“Oh,” Tim said, flat. “No, um. He left.”

Bruce’s stomach dropped. “He left?”

“Yeah, he, uh,” Tim was staring down at his shoes now, hands shoved deep into his hoodie pocket. “He called someone, I think. This big black car showed up out front, and… he just. Grabbed a bag and left.”

 _Left_. Bruce sank down onto the first step, head in his hands. Damian had _left_. Somehow, that alone cut so much deeper than the others.

He didn’t have to guess who Damian had called. His mother had connections, graciously extended to her only son in her one single act of maternal affection. Damian had clearly chosen this opportunity to take advantage of it, asking for passage to the one place Bruce couldn’t follow.

Bruce couldn’t blame him, if he was being honest.

Taking a deep breath, Bruce looked up, back towards Tim, still seated at the top of the stairs, expression carefully blank but eyes sharp, watching him.

“Are you staying?” Bruce asked, careful and light. He had to ask. He had to know, if this was-- a mistake. If he really had just ruined everything for himself.  “It’s… fine, if you aren’t. I know I’m asking a lot of you. Maybe even too much.”

All Tim did in reply was shrug again, half-hearted. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

A big empty mansion or foster care. Even the Titans, maybe. After losing his own parents, Tim really didn’t have anywhere else.

Bruce was startled when he found Tim suddenly sitting down beside him, still with his hands swallowed by the deep pocket of his hoodie, but close nonetheless. It was far more than Bruce had expected to be afforded.

“I mean. It can’t be all bad. Can it?” Tim continued, somewhat stilted in the apparent effort to lighten the mood. “The worst he did to me was, like, take me for a drive. I almost got McDonald’s out of it. That has to count for something, right?”

Bruce has to bite back a slightly hysterical laugh. “He kidnapped you and held you hostage as he ran over people with the car. He almost gassed you.”

“Yeah, but. _McDonald’s_.”

Bruce did laugh, then, struck by the absurdity of Tim’s justification and the sheer unexpected relief to realize he hadn’t driven off all his children quite yet.

“He’ll be here tomorrow,” Bruce said. “Joker.”

Tim hummed in absent acknowledgment. “I’ll be fine.”

Bruce pulled Tim closer, hugging him, far too grateful and full of emotion for much else.

**Author's Note:**

> -the selina proposal and the subsequent consequences from that are from Tom King's Batman #33 and #34  
> -tim's self-proclaimed not-so-bad experience comes from Paul Dini's "Slay Ride"
> 
> i'm @slaapkat on tumblr! sometimes i'm funny


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